Kids Get Beatings From School Safety Agents (Jamaica Queens)

Students, parents and civil rights activists are demanding a probe of what they call overly aggressive policing at a Queens school, saying safety agents have created a "climate of fear."

Agents at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica have allegedly beaten students, strip-searched them and routinely forced them to line up for at least an hour for security checks, protesters said Monday at the school.

She said Principal Stephen Duch is "complicit" in ongoing problems and has "turned a blind eye" to the aggressive behavior of security agents, who are NYPD employees.

Hillcrest student Rohan Morgan, 16, filed a lawsuit against the city in August after four security agents allegedly handcuffed him and then severely beat him in the dean's office.

"I was scared and didn't know what to think," Morgan said, recounting the incident at the rally.

School has been difficult since then, he said.

"I still have to look over my shoulder," Morgan said, adding that agents "still mess" with him.

City Education Department officials declined to comment on the lawsuit. But spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said such allegations are taken seriously.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said the July incident was sparked over a cell phone, which is banned in school. When agents tried to pull Morgan aside after his phone set off the metal detector, Morgan resisted, Browne said.

"The student became irate, and pushed and struck the agent," Browne said. Morgan was taken to Long Island Jewish Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

Trudy Morgan said her son came home with bruises all over his body and suffered a knee injury that required surgery.

"This is not the way they deserve to be treated," she said.

Hillcrest graduate Kumar Heeralall, 21, said he was the victim of a similar assault in 2007.

"They took me in a room, handcuffed me and beat me up," said Heeralall, who did not file a suit. "I thought I was the only one that it happened to."

Hillcrest student Ashley Avery, 16, said other schools don't have such stringent security.

"Not everyone is carrying a pocketknife," she said.

But George Geller, who heads the school's safety agents union, called the claims "outrageous."

"Inevitably, there are going to be allegations from time to time," Geller said. "What you heard here today were irresponsible calls to remove safety agents from schools."



Read more

First its the Cops,,now its the School "Safety" Agents? && to my surprise they got off the hook "NO JUSTICE IN AMERIKKKA"